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The Power Of Zzzz's
Posted by CoryI recently read that the most important thing you can give your newborn, in regards to their health, is the irreplaceable nourishment of mother’s milk. I am here to boldly disagree. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that mother’s milk is gold, although not the only healthy option; but I now strongly believe that as parents, there is something even more important that we can give our little ones. That’s right, more important than the wholesome goodness we call breast milk, is the magical word “SLEEP.”
It started one week after Sammy was born. We had experienced seven blissful, yet exhausting, days of Sammy sleeping soundly in my arms or snuggled next to me in bed, waking often to eat before getting cozy again and falling right back asleep in my arms. I couldn’t put him down. I couldn’t stop kissing him. I couldn’t stop staring adoringly at him. He hardly made a peep except a couple tiny squawks here and there that melted our hearts as we oohed and ahhed and encouraged him to do it more often lol. I had a very hard time with nursing in the beginning but we got that resolved quickly with a visit from a lactation consultant who worked wonders. (Jared calls her the “milk fairy” lol and we both whole-heartedly agree that lactation consultants are worth their weight in gold!) I was thoroughly exhausted but on cloud nine and assumed that I would be able to get sleep as soon as I was able to let him go long enough to put him in his own crib. I wasn’t ready to do that yet, but I naively thought the ball was in my court and I could get sleep as soon as I was willing.
So a week passed and I was finally willing. I started realizing that I needed a few hours of sleep or my eyes were literally going to fall out. So I ever so gently wrapped our baby up snugly in the softest blanket I could find and laid him in a cradle next to our bed and then fell exhausted into my own bed and instantly closed my eyes. The anticipation of sleep had never felt so good. However, it was short-lived. Not even a full minute had passed before our little bundle woke up and I got to hear his adorable whimpering. I jumped out of bed, ran to his side, and scooped up my sweet little bundle. Sleep would have to wait.
We repeated this process several more times during the week. Sammy would fall asleep soundly in my arms but the second I put him down his eyes would snap open and his wailing would begin, each time his tiny little voice getting stronger and stronger. He couldn’t sleep without me! How adorable!! But then, very quickly Sammy’s adorable wailing started to branch out. He didn’t just cry when I put him down, he now cried whenever he wasn’t nursing. And his wailing was getting quite loud. So loud in fact that we were starting to wonder why we were encouraging it only a few days earlier. I was starting to see stripes from lack of sleep by this point but was still filled with the awe of motherhood and thought it was amazing that the only thing that could calm our little boy down was nursing. He would be working his way towards total and complete meltdown and all I would have to do is nurse him and the second he attached, his big beautiful eyes rolled back in his head, the lines on his face softened, and the corners of his mouth curled up ever so slightly in a happy, satisfied grin. We thought it was the cutest thing we had ever seen. Jared loved observing my vital role in motherhood and I loved having the power to instantly comfort my sweet little one. Sleep again was put on the back burner. He needed me.
But slowly Sammy began sleeping less and less. He never slept for longer than 15-20 minutes at a time. He cried more and more. Our sweet, quiet baby became more and more agitated. Since nursing was the only thing that calmed him down, I let him nurse. All day, every day. At night, he would nurse without swallowing, he just wanted to suckle. It was a comfort thing. He would fall asleep nursing but if I took him off, no matter how slowly and gently, his eyes would snap open again and the wailing would start as he frantically tried to latch back on. So… I began sleeping with him attached to me. Literally.
However, after a little while, even the power of nursing started to falter. We would wear trails in our carpet as we spent hours and hours trying to soothe Sammy. Sammy slept less and less and was more and more upset. He became the world’s lightest sleeper, even while attached to me. The slightest noise would bring him from sound asleep, into a fully alert state full of screaming in under two seconds. After which I would have to patiently try to soothe him back to sleep. (the soothing usually took about 2 hours each time) I had good friends recommend worthy books on the subject, which I bought and tried to read but I was so sleep deprived that I literally couldn’t read them. I would read the same page 40 times before giving up. I couldn’t focus on or comprehend what I was looking at. Everyone told me I needed to put him to sleep in his own crib and let him cry. That it would be horrible for one night and then he would get it and our life would be bliss. I completely dismissed this idea. There was no way that I would be able to let our baby cry and do nothing about it. It just wasn’t possible. So I endured…. and things steadily got worse.
After about 8 weeks of this, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. Our baby needed sleep and so did I. Out of sheer desperation, Jared and I decided to test the waters and try the “let him cry” solution and geared up for an awful night. I changed him, nursed him, loved him, rocked him, let him fall asleep in my arms, and then ever so slowly laid him in his crib and stopped breathing until I was out of the room. 30 seconds later the wailing began. Jared and I watched the clock. One minute went by and we didn’t go to him. His wailing escalated into a scream that we had never heard before. It horrified me. I was certain that he was hurt. Tears streamed down my face as I tried to tell myself that we were doing what was in his best interest. Jared’s eyes filled with tears as well. After another minute, Jared said that he didn’t think this felt right. Relieved to have a reason to stop, I whole-heartedly agreed and we rushed to his side scooping him up. Our hearts were broken. Our little baby had actual tears pouring out the sides of his eyes and running down his face. We had never heard him cry like that before. We had lasted 3 full minutes and swore that we would never do that again. I apologized profusely to our little one as I cuddled him and let him nurse as a peace offering, for as long as he wanted. Several more weeks went by and then it happened.
I started actually breaking down due to sleep deprivation. When I would stand, the room wouldn’t stop moving. I felt like I was on a merry-go-round. My vision was constantly out of focus. I would blink constantly trying to make the picture clearer. I honestly heard babies screaming constantly, even when they weren’t. I would burst into tears over the tiniest thing. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t getting dressed, I wasn’t brushing my teeth, I wasn’t showering, and it had now been 10 weeks. 10 weeks of holding our baby every second of every day and letting him nurse for almost as long. I started trying to lay him in his crib but as soon as he would cry, I would give up and sleep with him attached to me again. I was too tired to protest. It was during week 10 that everything peaked and two incidences caused Jared and I to decide that we had to do something.
One Sunday I came up with the brilliant plan of pumping a bottle of breast milk and having Jared take Sammy to church while I tried to get 3 straight hours of sleep. The very idea made me weep with joy. 3 straight hours!! Three hours…IN A ROW! Jared left with Sammy and I practically ran to the bedroom. I fell asleep instantly. Here’s the disturbing part: in the 3 hours that Jared was gone, I was woken from a dead sleep 3 different times by Sammy screaming. I would jump out of bed on auto pilot and run to his room to get him from his crib only to discover that he wasn’t there. It would take several seconds to remember that Jared had him at church. I would laugh and shake my head at my craziness, and go sleepily back to bed only for it to happen again. And again. Then on Monday my delusions reached grand proportions.
It was the middle of the night and I had just nursed Sammy and tried to lay him in his own crib. I got back to my bed and he began to scream within about a minute. But here’s where it gets fun: I thought I was holding Sammy and that the child screaming was our “2nd” child in the crib. Mind you, I am NOT asleep at this point. I am fully awake. So I grab a blanket by the side of our bed and carefully wrap “Sammy” up in my arms and lay him next to Jared, who is dead asleep, so that I can go soothe our second baby. I gently shake Jared and tell him that Sammy is right behind him so to be sure not to roll over on him. Of course Jared is totally confused because he can hear Sammy crying in the other room, not right next to him. So he flips over to look at me and I fully stiff-arm him and snap “DON’T roll over! Sammy is right here!” Then I jump out of bed as the screaming of our second child escalates. As I leave the room I hear Jared say in utter frustration, “I am SO confused!” As I rush to the nursery door, I stop. Torn between rushing in and calming our frantic baby, and going back to Jared to make sure he didn’t roll onto Sammy. Going back to Jared won out. I was scared to death that he was going to roll over on Sammy. He obviously wasn’t awake since he was acting so out of it. So I ran back into our bedroom where Jared was sound asleep again. This totally annoyed me so I went to his side of the bed and grabbed him and shouted, “Jared! Wake up!!” Jared’s eyes snapped open as he frantically answered, “WHY!?” So I told him again, “because Sammy is asleep next to you and you can’t roll over onto him!” Jared whimpered and said, “where is he????” So I reached out to place my hand gently on Sammy to show Jared where he was. But all I felt was the bed. You would think that this would be the point when reality would sink in and the world would come back into focus. Not so. I became absolutely frantic wondering where Sammy was and why he wasn’t where I had just laid him. This whole time, the screaming in the other room is escalating and I am inching closer and closer towards total and complete breakdown trying to resolve two intense situations at the same time.
It took me a good 15 minutes to come back to reality. We laughed about it later but both were secretly really concerned. It was the next day that with loving support and encouragement from my sister in-law, Melynie, that we decided enough was enough. We decided to let him cry. We would keep him in his crib no matter what. We would go back in every 3 minutes to reassure him that we were here and that we loved him, but we would not pick him up. Melynie warned us that our hearts would break but that if we could stick it out, it really would help. She told us to rent a movie to “distract” us and to settle in for a rough night.
So we did it. We got a movie ready and once again I changed him, nursed him, loved him, rocked him, let him fall asleep in my arms, and then ever so slowly laid him in his crib and stopped breathing until I was out of the room. Again, 30 seconds later, he started screaming. At the top of his lungs. But we held firm. We put the movie on but neither of us watched so much as two seconds of it. We sat on the couch glued to the clock. Every 3 minutes religiously we would go in and comfort him and then leave. Most every time he would start screaming again before we had even left the room. But we kept walking out and then would start the 3 minutes again. I bawled. I sobbed. And not the pretty kind. It was absolutely heart-wrenching. It went against every natural motherly urge in my body to hear my baby cry and not run to him and try to comfort him. Jared cried as well but our desperation had reached new levels this time around and we were more determined to stick it out. He cried, no not cried… screamed at the top of his lungs with tears rolling out of his eyes, for one full hour. We went in every three minutes faithfully and cried the whole time along with him. But then something magical happened! He rolled over and fell asleep! And then he slept… for 7 hours!!! We thought for sure that he was dead. He had never slept for more than 20 minutes! We were so concerned and spent a great deal of time at his door listening for breathing. He was alive. We turned up the baby monitor in shock and went to bed. He slept soundly for the first time in 11 weeks. After 7 hours, he woke up and whimpered a little letting me know he was hungry. I went into the nursery and fed him and when I was done, laid him back in the crib and he slept for another 4 1/2 hours! When morning came, he was making noises, but not crying. I had never heard him do that. So I went into his room and he was wide awake and beaming. He was all smiles as I lovingly scooped him up. He was so happy that as I was trying to nurse him, he kept looking up at me with a huge open mouthed grin, would quickly lose interest in nursing, and instead start to make adorable cooing noises that I had never heard before. I was in complete and utter shock. Could it be that it was that easy!? That morning was truly joyous. Sammy had eyes locked onto me the entire time and kept grinning and cooing for almost an hour and a half. After which, he yawned sleepily. So I took him back to his room again and laid him in his crib… awake. I thought this would be the moment that our wonderful morning would shatter. He would for sure start screaming. He was awake and I was laying him down. But to my utter disbelief, he smiled at me and then rolled over and closed his eyes and went to sleep. Not a peep. Not so much as one single whimper in protest. Jared and I couldn’t believe it. That whole day it was like Sammy was trying to catch up on all the sleep he had been lacking from the last 11 weeks of his life. He took 4 naps! Each about 1 1/2- 2 hours long.
We have continued to do this for the last 5 days now and we are stunned at how well it has worked. The second night Sammy screamed again but for only 30 minutes. The 3rd night for only 20 minutes. And the 4th night, he just whimpered in protest while I laid him down but was out before I had even left the room. Every night since the first one, he has woken up at about 1am to eat, and again at 4:00. But the rest of the night… he sleeps! Mornings are my favorite. He is all smiles. Towards the end of the day, he starts getting really fussy again because he is tired but if I can get him to sleep before he reaches that overtired state, he doesn’t protest.
I am now a big fan of letting them cry. Consoling regularly, but standing firm. Sammy is literally a different baby. I am stunned at the difference. He is still a little high maintenance at different times during the day but it is almost always when he is tired. In general, he is happy. He smiles so much now and is starting to “giggle”. lol it is so adorable to watch. And as for me…. I have been brought back from the brink of sleep-deprived insanity to just plain ole happy parenting exhaustion. We aren’t completely out of the woods yet, as we have only been doing this for 5 days 
but there is hope at the end of the tunnel!!
So as you can see, Sammy was getting a surplus of “the most important thing that I could have given him,” with nursing all day and night for 11 weeks straight. And yet, he steadily spiraled into a constantly sad, agitated state. It wasn’t until we were able to give him the greatest gift of all… sleep… that our sweet, happy baby returned. Making sleep, not mother’s milk, the most important thing that I could have given him. Ahh the power of Zzzz’s.